Does that mean I am not permitted to register the domain of nakedlinux.com or linuxbabes.net or linux-in-school.edu or linuxpanties.org or this-is-not-linux.int?
Is the word "Linux" now so special it has surpassed brandnames like "Coca-cola" or "Kodak"?
Where is the "Freedom" as in "FREEDOM" in all of this?
I have some ideas on possible very useful software that I would rather GPL them. My question is, GPL by itself doesn't generate enough funds for such a company - you gotta pay the accountant, lawyer, and all those bills, you know? - and I do not think I want to get the involvement of a venture capital in the company either. After all, not all venture capitalists are as enlightened as the one who funds Zope.
So back to my question - HOW to run a company that producing GPL software?
As you have pointed out, there _are_ so-called "unmaintained" software in BOTh the open-sourced and close-sourced software arena, and you have also aptly pointed out that the "deadends" in the open-sourced are not-so-deadends, because if you have the skill and inclination, there _exists_ the possibility that YOU take up the job to fix whatever is needed to be fixed.
You have also pointed out that _NOT_ everyone has the skill and inclination, and you hinted that, therefore, the "open-sourced" model doesn't work for all occassion.
But do you ever try to put your thought on the OTHER SIDE? Think of the close-sourced software - when they are NOT maintained, they remains DEAD no matter if those who want to fix it has the skill and inclination, or not.
Take for example - the software OPTASM - a REMARKABLE assembly laugnage compiler. It is a CLOSE-SOURCE product, and is no longer in the market.
I heard that the company that used to own OPTASM was sold to Symantec, the people who produces Norton Utilities, so, I contacted Symantec, trying to find out if they still sell the OPTASM compiler or not.
The answer I got is NO. Symantec isn't selling OPTASM anymore, and they have no plan to update the product. That means, essentially, the people in Symantec has ABANDONED a remarkable product that was once one of the BEST assembly compiler for the X86 chip line.
And when I further enquired Symantec regarding the possibility for them to release the SOURCE of OPTASM to the general public, - since they are NOT going to sell OPTASM anymore, I figured that they have NO PLAN to make money out of that thing anymore, right? - and the answer I got from Symantec is a BIG SILENCE.
I can code. Although I am not a CRACK PROGRAMMER, I have enough experience to do _some_ update and code cleanups for the OPTASM compiler, if I can get the source to it. And I AM WILLING TO DO THAT.
In other words, I _HAVE_ the skill and the inclination to update the OPTASM compiler, but because of its close-sourced nature, there is NO WAY I get to do it.
On the other hand, if the OPTASM compiler was a open-sourced product, with my skill, and inclination, at least I can get to TRY to update the thing.
In summary, a HUGE difference between the Open and Close sourced software arena are in the MAINTAINABILITY of the ORPHANED softwares - the softwares that are not being maintained anymore.
The orphaned, but open-sourced softwares _could_ be updated by ANYONE who has the skill and inclination, but those orphand close-sourced software will be DEAD FOREVER, if the owner decline to release the source to the public domain.
I hope what I am saying here will bring attention to those who have the right over source-codes of orphaned and previously close-sourced softwares, and hope that they will release their sources to the public domain. If they do not want others to PROFIT from the good gesture (releasing source-codes to the public domain), then they could have release it under GPL.
Believe it or not, the open-source bug has biten M$ !
Look into M$'s sponsorship of the Schools Interoperability Framework (www.schoolsinterop.org) and maybe you can see how M$ plans to use XML (and its derivative) in real world application.
Although undeniably the rate of software being ported to Linux is increasing, it is still w_a_y t_o_o s_l_o_w by all account.
If we are to achieve the "world domination" status, in the current slow-pace of software porting to the Linux environment, by the time the existing crop of softwares are ported to Linux, newer and more useful software would have emerged.
That means, we in the Linux community will be always lagging behind the "you-know-who".
The only way to win the war is to concentrate on a totally new front - RESEARCHING AND DEVELOPING NEW GENERATIONS OF EXCITING KILLER-APPS for Linux.
I understand that there _are_ a lot of software projects being launched for Linux, but unfortunately, most of them are re-hash, or reverse-enginnering of old-softwares, such as word processing, spread-sheets, window-managers, graphic-manipulators, and so on.
There is a need to find out where the industry is heading, and there is an even more urgent need to FORESEE where the current horizon ends, so that we in the Linux community can GO BEYOND the current horizon and start charting NEW SOFTWARE TERRITORIES.
Only in that way can we create a whole new cropt of EXCITING KILLER-APPS for Linux, and only that will get Linux to have the too-long-denied respectability it deserves.
I was born in 1961, and not until 1994, in one used book store, I saw an old copy of MAD magazine, published in 1961 which reminded me that "1961" can be REVERSED and still becomes "1961" !!
Man, I realized how STUPID I was, when it had to take me THIRTY THREE YEARS of my life before I notice what the MAD magazine has noticed the year I was born !
So, this is a VERY BELATED THANKS to all who have contributed to the success of MAD. You have convinced me that there _ARE_ geniuses behind the COVERS OF MAD !!!
First, a disclaimer: I sm no lawyer, and I only say the things that I _think_ makes sense in this case.
If it is the US Feds who are at fault, then, it should be clear that the number one thing we must have in mind is HOW TO AVOID THE FEDS.
If operating your business in the U. S. of A. means the Feds can come knocking you down, whenever they want, on whatever reason (concocted or otherwise) they can come up with, then, the OBVIOUS thing to do is to RE-LOCATE your business OUTSIDE the U. S. of A.
Supposingly, if you have an operation in Canada, or any other country that has no similar STUPID LAW as the United States, making and selling EXACTLY the same thing, and you sell your hobbyist kits via the mail service, can the US authority still prosecute you?
As far as I know, if you do not use the service of USMail, then, the US attorney office will have NO CASE on you. Of course, they can seek the help from the country you operate in, trying to convince them that what you are doing is illegal. But, if the country of your operation does NOT has any law prohibiting you selling whatever you sell (as long as they are not kiddie-porn, or narcotics, which is almost universally banned anywhere in this world), through the mail or through storefront, I do not think ANYONE can leggally touch you.
I mean, of course, if the US authority wants to play dirty, they can always _plant_ something in your premise, like a bag of cocaine or something, but that's another question.
The moral thing is, if you think what you are doing INSIDE the United States can get yourself into trouble, get OUTSIDE of the US and continue whatever you do.
This question may seems off-topic, but to me, if we are talking about Web-appliances, it is _on_ topic....
Can the Net exist without telephones?
I ask this question because what to me, if the survival of the Net depends on telephone, then the telephone will not only be a BOTTLENECK for the Net, it would also become an LIFELINE for the Net, and that is VERY DANGEROUS.
Think about this for a while, if you may....
What if someone played havoc with the phone system? How will the Net going to survive?
And if the Net crashes, well... perhaps not the ENTIRE Net, but let us say in some regions of the world the telephone stops working... and when _THAT_ happens, web-appliances that depends on the Net will stop functioning as well, and, to make the story short - we ought to find a way out of the current structure.
Do I hear wireless?
But I don't think the "wireless" thing is going to work, because there is only _that_ many frequencies available, and if everybody and their mother-in-laws start to use wireless-enabled web-appliances, there won't be enough frequency available for the REALLY IMPORTANT MATTERS, like the two-way communication between air-traffic-controllers to airplane pilots.
Is there anyone around who are more familiar with technology who can offer some insight, and perhaps even create a new way of extending the Net BEYOND the current shackle-hold of the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System)?
Thanks for reading, and I'm all ear for any suggestion that you may have.
Forth is tiny, but assembly can be even more tinier, be made even more compact, and reach a higher benchmark in execution than Forth or any other language.
Is there a LEGO-assembler? Any geek out here want to invent one if there isn't one already?
I personally do not think this as a case of "evil conspiracy". I think this is a case where big companies are employing clueless nincompoops to design webpages for them.
If we are to spread the goodnews of Linux, we must start by educating the big companies of our presence, and we must demonstrate our collective purchasing power since it is our money they are after, and if the big businesses can see that we represent a sizeable portion of their total business, then they will stop hiring those clueless nincompoops.
1) The GM crop becomes dominant, and supplants the natural variant. Given its enhanced resistance to pests, blight and other "natural predators," the crop grows like a weed, and it becomes a problem to kill off the crop where it is unwanted.
2) A GM crop which has been modified to produce no fertile seeds causes the natural variant to become sterile as well. The crop dies out, apart from GM seeds created in the laboratory, and with patent protection ensuring that no one can create even a modified crop with the defect removed in order to restore fertility, the corp. effectively owns that entire crop.
There is a THIRD possibility:
Since GM crops are the product of mixing genes of entities from totally different evolutionary trees, - such as taking a gene from a FISH and put it in a PLANT.
Even if the resulting GM crop is still 99.999% genetically intact, who knows what the pollens of that GM crop will do to OTHER NATURALLY OCCURING PLANTS that share sizeable portions of genetic sequences with the GM crop?
To illustrate what I am saying - Let's say Mosanto created a GM crop (let's say a rice plant) by taking gene X from a fish and insert that gene into a naturally occuring rice species, and the resulting GM crop was declared "safe to eat" by the FDA.
When the pollen from the GM crop gets into, and fertilizes, a neighboring natural crop, lets say a species of wild-rice, and produces a hybrid.
The resulting hybrid may produces a new kind of toxin, that was resulted from the genetic sequence of (fish + rice + wild-rice).
Of course, FDA didn't get to test the resulting hybrid. In fact, they don't have to. After all, the resulting "hybrid" is classified as a "product of natural evolution", the offsprings of the hybrid spread like wildfire.
Eventually, people start to feed their livestocks with offsprings of the hybrid, without realizing the presence of the new toxin. Thus, the toxin is passed to human beings via the milk, egg or meat of the livestocks, accumulating in the human bodies.
Decades later, people start to have strange illnesses, as a result of the accumulation of the new toxin in their body. By then, it has already been DECADES since the spread of the hybrid, and there is just NO WAY to eliminate that hybrid plant anymore - they are just everywhere.
Question is: what can the people do, then?
It is not wrong to try out new things, if the new things can somehow be LIMITED IN SCOPE.
What Mosanto and many other GM crop companies are doing is that they are playing with something that they KNOW THEY CAN NOT POSSIBLY CONTROL.
They scope is just too large. Once you release the pollens that carry the genes of the GM crop into the world, there is just no way to know what may happen next.
You bet Y2K will arrives the old way, by having a countdown [ Five, Four, Three, Two, One... HAPPY NEW YEAR !! ]
2. The [uh-oh!] way.
Y2K has already announced itself to the world, UK's recent fiasco is but one example. Many more not-that-Y2k-compliance systems will give [some of] us the once-in-a-thousand-year fits, for the next 24 hours, or so.
No matter which way you end up with, welcome to the year 2000, and I wish you a Happy New Year !!
After accessing both the webhistory pages by the.org people and by MS, I come to the conclusion that there ought to be a better way for us, the users, to keep closer tab on those so-called "History Keepers".
Too many times I find that people likes to "play" with history - that is, they only tell _their_ side of history, and that _their_ version of history supposed to be the one and only valid version - and I do find it disheartening that we have allowed to many history-revisionists to "DO" history for us.
What is more disheartening is this kind of act is happening on the Net. I mean, look at MS's version... I would not want to discount IE's contribution to the popularity of the Web, but c'mon, IE is not the one and only thing going on.
But then, who should we blame but ourselves, by allowing the history revisionists to run amok?
Hopefully, one day, we will have a better way to keep a closer tab on those history revisionists, aka, "History Keepers", and if we find _any_ funny doings, we ought to have the means to make sure TRUE (and hopefully better unbiased versions of) history will eventually prevail.
I am like 10,000 KM from where you are, so obviously "showing up" in the courtroom is a little bit troublesome for me. I am tremendously pleased for all of you who have gone there to express your support for the Open Source movement, and thanks to all the lawyers from EFF as well, as they have taken their valuable (and sellable) time off to help the Open Source community.
Thanks to all ! Hopefully with all your help, we will have a victorous years ahead !!
Thank you for bringing up the issue of how difficult it is to use Chinese in the cyberworld.
Yes, there are 22 different ways - not 18 ! - of inputing the Chinese characters into computer-understandable form.
Yes, there are three completely different encodings for Chinese characters.
And the problem faced by most Chinese (and most Asians as well, for that matter) is not that computer is difficult to use, but TYPING IN their own languages, be it Thai, Korean, Japanese, Tamil or Chinese, is SO DIFFICULT one would have to re-learn the whole concept of typing !!
It is no longer QWERTY or Dvorak keyboard routine, but mind-boggling act of memorizing STUPID key sequences that has TOTALLY NOTHING TO DO with how the characters are shaped....
For that matter, using MS-Windoze to type in the Chinese (or Thai, or Korean, and so on) isn't that easier than Linux. You _still_ have to memorize those STUPID key-sequences, or there is no go.
But help is on the way. IBM's "Via Voice" and all other voice-recognition softwares are transforming the landscape - we no longer have to crack our brains in order to type in a simple sentences, - using the voice recognition software, all we have to concentrate on is WHAT WE WANT TO SAY.
I hope, in the near future, all the languages in the world will be easily used in computer, and I would like to express my sincerest thanks to all the talented individuals who have done such a superb job in creating the voice-recognition softwares, and companies like IBM which has generously supported such herculean efforts.
I fully understand the need for some to dig at China whenever they get the chance, but this time I am afraid it has gone too far.
The people who frequent slashdot should have understand the differences between CRACKERS and HACKERS.
A Hacker is someone who derives joy from discovering ways to cirvumvent limitations, while a Cracker, on the other hand, is someone who intentionally commiting CRIME using his/her knowledge of hi-tech hacking.
The reference to the guy who was sentenced to death in China as a "Hacker" is simply erroneous. The case involved was a CRIMINAL CASE, where two brothers have ROBBED A BANK, using hi-tech hacking maneuvers.
BANK ROBBERY, no matter via the "stick-em-up" way or via computer hackery, is still BANK ROBBERY, and I believe the very act of ROBBING BANK constitutes a CRIME in China, as well as US or Australia.
In US, BANK ROBBERY is a FEDERAL CRIME, that is, the case is immediately under FBI's jurisdiction, no matter where it happens in the U. S. of A.
If bank robbery is a crime in the USA, how come we have people here rooting for bank robbers who robbed banks in China?
Why the double standards?
A crime is a crime, there is no two ways about it.
There should not be a double standard here, especially when the people who frequent/. are supposed to be better than the average joe-on-the-street. We are supposed to be the people who understand things better.
My only hope for the new millennium (just a few days away) is the people who frequent slashdot.org would respect China's right in carrying out its duty to protect its own citizenry.
Please stop denying China its right to punish its own criminals, just as US wouldn't want anyone from India or Afghanistan to meddle in the US criminal justice system.
Just a side-note:
China is just another country, and we all know there _are_ people who would fault China for whatever reason they can find.
Of course, these people are experts. They would package their condemnations in such ways that they would appeared to be non-racis. But we all know the true reasons behind all those condemnations.
Meanwhile, lest we forget, USA is _still_ a country practicing capital punishment. How come we do not see the same people who condemn the death pernalty in China condemns the death pernalty in the U. S. of A?
Why not?
I mean, are the poor souls who were put to death in the USA _less_ dead than their counterparts in China?
We can do better. We should do better.
We should be able to differentiate CRACKERS from HACKERS, and we should be able to understand that in order for the Americans to condemn China for putting its own citizens to death, USA should first stops its own capital punishment.
Want to demand China to stop executing its own people? Let the United States be the first one to put a stop of all its capital punishment cases. Then perhaps you can start demanding China to do the same.
One question - no matter it is trade secret or patent, how effective will the court be, if they have to silence the ENTIRE WORLD?
Some people may have been served court-papers designed to seal-their-lips, but think of this - we are all in the Net, and the more the court tries to seal-lips, the more of us will TALK TO OTHERS about the matter, and the more injunctions handed down by the court, the LOUDER we will talk about it.
Can the court punishes THE WHOLE WORLD?
Of course not.
Let them try, and let them find out that they can no longer use the same-old-routine to step on other people anymore.
All the window-managers that I have come across have one thing in common, they all want to be compared to, and outsmart MS-Windows, and I think this is a very misguided move.
Look, this gets very stale, very fast.
IBM have done this years ago - they came out with the slogan "Better Window and Window" for the OS/2, and see where OS/2 is heading?
What the Open-Source community needs to realize is that we do not compete against MS-Windoze. We are Open-Source, and we can use our talent for BETTER THINGS than yet-another-window-manager.
Would someone please listen up -
Please, we do not need to waste out time on outsmarting MS-Windows. Instead, we can use out time better to make Linux, and all its utilities, EASIER TO INSTALL AND USE.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for taking time out to consider what I have just said.
This message is going to be a little bit Off-Topic, please do not get too offended...
Do you know that both the games of Chess and GO originated from the East - from China?
The Chess game was introduced to the Western world (Europe and Middle East) by the Mongolian invaders, whose has learned the game of Chess from the Chinese.
The GO game was introduced to the Western world via the Japanese, whom in turn learned it from the Chinese.
Sorry for this not-so-on-topic message, but I think you might want to learn something this Christmas day anyway.:)
This is going to be a little bit OT, but this needs to be said anyway...
Do you know that both the game of Chess and GO originated from the East - from China?
The Chess game was introduced to the Western world (Europe and Middle East) by the Mongolian invaders, whose has learned the game of Chess from the Chinese.
The GO game was introduced to the Western world via the Japanese, whom in turn learned it from the Chinese.
Sorry for this not-so-on-topic message, but I think you might want to learn something this Christmas day anyway.:)
This is my own opinion - I personally do not think the journalist who wrote the piece actually gets it.
Most things that we have here, today, from gunpowder to electronic wonders, the ideas behind them all originated not from tweaking equations, but from intuition and inspiration.
Sometimes it requires "clicks" in the mind's eye to find a true "EUREKA!". Tweaking equations, IMHO, just doesn't make it.
After all, tweaking equations require _prior_ equations to exist, or there won't be anything to be "tweaked", right? And most of those prior equations owed their existence from the "clicks" of somebody's mind's eye.
Sorry, I've wandered to far out of topic. Gotta stop when I'm still able to.
While you might be true in saying that we ought to improve on the "Feel" thing - in sinking the 8-ball or in other endeavors - but please do not disregard the _importance_ of feel.
There are times I have done thing by "feel" alone, and those are the times I could have done extensive calculations and such, but there is always that little voice (call it instinct if you may) that tells me to go by "Feel" - yea, sounds like Obiwan's "Feel the force, Luke" thing, doesn't it?:) - and so far (fingers crossed) I haven't have my "Feel" betrays me yet.
I have tried to explain what "Feel" is, but I just can't. It's something you gotta have within yourself.
My point is that perhaps the "discovery" of the "scattering solution" may not be yielding much practical effect, like the onet you have mentioned - distributed computing.
Perhaps the "discovery" itself may be used for predicting when and where the "scattering effect" may occur, and with the ability to predict, new branches of science may finally be able to mushroom.
Slashdot Mirror
Does that mean I am not permitted to register the domain of nakedlinux.com or linuxbabes.net or linux-in-school.edu or linuxpanties.org or this-is-not-linux.int?
Is the word "Linux" now so special it has surpassed brandnames like "Coca-cola" or "Kodak"?
Where is the "Freedom" as in "FREEDOM" in all of this?
I have a related question.
How to run a company producing GPL softwares?
I have some ideas on possible very useful software that I would rather GPL them. My question is, GPL by itself doesn't generate enough funds for such a company - you gotta pay the accountant, lawyer, and all those bills, you know? - and I do not think I want to get the involvement of a venture capital in the company either. After all, not all venture capitalists are as enlightened as the one who funds Zope.
So back to my question - HOW to run a company that producing GPL software?
If you have any idea, I want to know.
Thank you.
As you have pointed out, there _are_ so-called "unmaintained" software in BOTh the open-sourced and close-sourced software arena, and you have also aptly pointed out that the "deadends" in the open-sourced are not-so-deadends, because if you have the skill and inclination, there _exists_ the possibility that YOU take up the job to fix whatever is needed to be fixed.
You have also pointed out that _NOT_ everyone has the skill and inclination, and you hinted that, therefore, the "open-sourced" model doesn't work for all occassion.
But do you ever try to put your thought on the OTHER SIDE? Think of the close-sourced software - when they are NOT maintained, they remains DEAD no matter if those who want to fix it has the skill and inclination, or not.
Take for example - the software OPTASM - a REMARKABLE assembly laugnage compiler. It is a CLOSE-SOURCE product, and is no longer in the market.
I heard that the company that used to own OPTASM was sold to Symantec, the people who produces Norton Utilities, so, I contacted Symantec, trying to find out if they still sell the OPTASM compiler or not.
The answer I got is NO. Symantec isn't selling OPTASM anymore, and they have no plan to update the product. That means, essentially, the people in Symantec has ABANDONED a remarkable product that was once one of the BEST assembly compiler for the X86 chip line.
And when I further enquired Symantec regarding the possibility for them to release the SOURCE of OPTASM to the general public, - since they are NOT going to sell OPTASM anymore, I figured that they have NO PLAN to make money out of that thing anymore, right? - and the answer I got from Symantec is a BIG SILENCE.
I can code. Although I am not a CRACK PROGRAMMER, I have enough experience to do _some_ update and code cleanups for the OPTASM compiler, if I can get the source to it. And I AM WILLING TO DO THAT.
In other words, I _HAVE_ the skill and the inclination to update the OPTASM compiler, but because of its close-sourced nature, there is NO WAY I get to do it.
On the other hand, if the OPTASM compiler was a open-sourced product, with my skill, and inclination, at least I can get to TRY to update the thing.
In summary, a HUGE difference between the Open and Close sourced software arena are in the MAINTAINABILITY of the ORPHANED softwares - the softwares that are not being maintained anymore.
The orphaned, but open-sourced softwares _could_ be updated by ANYONE who has the skill and inclination, but those orphand close-sourced software will be DEAD FOREVER, if the owner decline to release the source to the public domain.
I hope what I am saying here will bring attention to those who have the right over source-codes of orphaned and previously close-sourced softwares, and hope that they will release their sources to the public domain. If they do not want others to PROFIT from the good gesture (releasing source-codes to the public domain), then they could have release it under GPL.
Believe it or not, the open-source bug has biten M$ !
Look into M$'s sponsorship of the Schools Interoperability Framework (www.schoolsinterop.org) and maybe you can see how M$ plans to use XML (and its derivative) in real world application.
Although undeniably the rate of software being ported to Linux is increasing, it is still w_a_y t_o_o s_l_o_w by all account.
If we are to achieve the "world domination" status, in the current slow-pace of software porting to the Linux environment, by the time the existing crop of softwares are ported to Linux, newer and more useful software would have emerged.
That means, we in the Linux community will be always lagging behind the "you-know-who".
The only way to win the war is to concentrate on a totally new front - RESEARCHING AND DEVELOPING NEW GENERATIONS OF EXCITING KILLER-APPS for Linux.
I understand that there _are_ a lot of software projects being launched for Linux, but unfortunately, most of them are re-hash, or reverse-enginnering of old-softwares, such as word processing, spread-sheets, window-managers, graphic-manipulators, and so on.
There is a need to find out where the industry is heading, and there is an even more urgent need to FORESEE where the current horizon ends, so that we in the Linux community can GO BEYOND the current horizon and start charting NEW SOFTWARE TERRITORIES.
Only in that way can we create a whole new cropt of EXCITING KILLER-APPS for Linux, and only that will get Linux to have the too-long-denied respectability it deserves.
I was born in 1961, and not until 1994, in one used book store, I saw an old copy of MAD magazine, published in 1961 which reminded me that "1961" can be REVERSED and still becomes "1961" !!
Man, I realized how STUPID I was, when it had to take me THIRTY THREE YEARS of my life before I notice what the MAD magazine has noticed the year I was born !
So, this is a VERY BELATED THANKS to all who have contributed to the success of MAD. You have convinced me that there _ARE_ geniuses behind the COVERS OF MAD !!!
First, a disclaimer: I sm no lawyer, and I only say the things that I _think_ makes sense in this case.
If it is the US Feds who are at fault, then, it should be clear that the number one thing we must have in mind is HOW TO AVOID THE FEDS.
If operating your business in the U. S. of A. means the Feds can come knocking you down, whenever they want, on whatever reason (concocted or otherwise) they can come up with, then, the OBVIOUS thing to do is to RE-LOCATE your business OUTSIDE the U. S. of A.
Supposingly, if you have an operation in Canada, or any other country that has no similar STUPID LAW as the United States, making and selling EXACTLY the same thing, and you sell your hobbyist kits via the mail service, can the US authority still prosecute you?
As far as I know, if you do not use the service of USMail, then, the US attorney office will have NO CASE on you. Of course, they can seek the help from the country you operate in, trying to convince them that what you are doing is illegal. But, if the country of your operation does NOT has any law prohibiting you selling whatever you sell (as long as they are not kiddie-porn, or narcotics, which is almost universally banned anywhere in this world), through the mail or through storefront, I do not think ANYONE can leggally touch you.
I mean, of course, if the US authority wants to play dirty, they can always _plant_ something in your premise, like a bag of cocaine or something, but that's another question.
The moral thing is, if you think what you are doing INSIDE the United States can get yourself into trouble, get OUTSIDE of the US and continue whatever you do.
This question may seems off-topic, but to me, if we are talking about Web-appliances, it is _on_ topic
Can the Net exist without telephones?
I ask this question because what to me, if the survival of the Net depends on telephone, then the telephone will not only be a BOTTLENECK for the Net, it would also become an LIFELINE for the Net, and that is VERY DANGEROUS.
Think about this for a while, if you may....
What if someone played havoc with the phone system? How will the Net going to survive?
And if the Net crashes, well... perhaps not the ENTIRE Net, but let us say in some regions of the world the telephone stops working
Do I hear wireless?
But I don't think the "wireless" thing is going to work, because there is only _that_ many frequencies available, and if everybody and their mother-in-laws start to use wireless-enabled web-appliances, there won't be enough frequency available for the REALLY IMPORTANT MATTERS, like the two-way communication between air-traffic-controllers to airplane pilots.
Is there anyone around who are more familiar with technology who can offer some insight, and perhaps even create a new way of extending the Net BEYOND the current shackle-hold of the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System)?
Thanks for reading, and I'm all ear for any suggestion that you may have.
Have a good day.
Forth is tiny, but assembly can be even more tinier, be made even more compact, and reach a higher benchmark in execution than Forth or any other language.
Is there a LEGO-assembler? Any geek out here want to invent one if there isn't one already?
First it was Fox, now it's Citicorp.
I personally do not think this as a case of "evil conspiracy". I think this is a case where big companies are employing clueless nincompoops to design webpages for them.
If we are to spread the goodnews of Linux, we must start by educating the big companies of our presence, and we must demonstrate our collective purchasing power since it is our money they are after, and if the big businesses can see that we represent a sizeable portion of their total business, then they will stop hiring those clueless nincompoops.
You mentioned:
1) The GM crop becomes dominant, and supplants the natural variant. Given its enhanced resistance to pests, blight and other "natural predators," the crop grows like a weed, and it becomes a problem to kill off the crop where it is unwanted.
2) A GM crop which has been modified to produce no fertile seeds causes the natural variant to become sterile as well. The crop dies out, apart from GM seeds created in the laboratory, and with patent protection ensuring that no one can create even a modified crop with the defect removed in order to restore fertility, the corp. effectively owns that entire crop.
There is a THIRD possibility:
Since GM crops are the product of mixing genes of entities from totally different evolutionary trees, - such as taking a gene from a FISH and put it in a PLANT.
Even if the resulting GM crop is still 99.999% genetically intact, who knows what the pollens of that GM crop will do to OTHER NATURALLY OCCURING PLANTS that share sizeable portions of genetic sequences with the GM crop?
To illustrate what I am saying - Let's say Mosanto created a GM crop (let's say a rice plant) by taking gene X from a fish and insert that gene into a naturally occuring rice species, and the resulting GM crop was declared "safe to eat" by the FDA.
When the pollen from the GM crop gets into, and fertilizes, a neighboring natural crop, lets say a species of wild-rice, and produces a hybrid.
The resulting hybrid may produces a new kind of toxin, that was resulted from the genetic sequence of (fish + rice + wild-rice).
Of course, FDA didn't get to test the resulting hybrid. In fact, they don't have to. After all, the resulting "hybrid" is classified as a "product of natural evolution", the offsprings of the hybrid spread like wildfire.
Eventually, people start to feed their livestocks with offsprings of the hybrid, without realizing the presence of the new toxin. Thus, the toxin is passed to human beings via the milk, egg or meat of the livestocks, accumulating in the human bodies.
Decades later, people start to have strange illnesses, as a result of the accumulation of the new toxin in their body. By then, it has already been DECADES since the spread of the hybrid, and there is just NO WAY to eliminate that hybrid plant anymore - they are just everywhere.
Question is: what can the people do, then?
It is not wrong to try out new things, if the new things can somehow be LIMITED IN SCOPE.
What Mosanto and many other GM crop companies are doing is that they are playing with something that they KNOW THEY CAN NOT POSSIBLY CONTROL.
They scope is just too large. Once you release the pollens that carry the genes of the GM crop into the world, there is just no way to know what may happen next.
Y2K will arrive in two ways -
1. The old way.
You bet Y2K will arrives the old way, by having a countdown [ Five, Four, Three, Two, One
2. The [uh-oh!] way.
Y2K has already announced itself to the world, UK's recent fiasco is but one example. Many more not-that-Y2k-compliance systems will give [some of] us the once-in-a-thousand-year fits, for the next 24 hours, or so.
No matter which way you end up with, welcome to the year 2000, and I wish you a Happy New Year !!
After accessing both the webhistory pages by the
Too many times I find that people likes to "play" with history - that is, they only tell _their_ side of history, and that _their_ version of history supposed to be the one and only valid version - and I do find it disheartening that we have allowed to many history-revisionists to "DO" history for us.
What is more disheartening is this kind of act is happening on the Net. I mean, look at MS's version... I would not want to discount IE's contribution to the popularity of the Web, but c'mon, IE is not the one and only thing going on.
But then, who should we blame but ourselves, by allowing the history revisionists to run amok?
Hopefully, one day, we will have a better way to keep a closer tab on those history revisionists, aka, "History Keepers", and if we find _any_ funny doings, we ought to have the means to make sure TRUE (and hopefully better unbiased versions of) history will eventually prevail.
I am like 10,000 KM from where you are, so obviously "showing up" in the courtroom is a little bit troublesome for me. I am tremendously pleased for all of you who have gone there to express your support for the Open Source movement, and thanks to all the lawyers from EFF as well, as they have taken their valuable (and sellable) time off to help the Open Source community.
Thanks to all ! Hopefully with all your help, we will have a victorous years ahead !!
Happy New Year !!
Dear Poopie,
Thank you for bringing up the issue of how difficult it is to use Chinese in the cyberworld.
Yes, there are 22 different ways - not 18 ! - of inputing the Chinese characters into computer-understandable form.
Yes, there are three completely different encodings for Chinese characters.
And the problem faced by most Chinese (and most Asians as well, for that matter) is not that computer is difficult to use, but TYPING IN their own languages, be it Thai, Korean, Japanese, Tamil or Chinese, is SO DIFFICULT one would have to re-learn the whole concept of typing !!
It is no longer QWERTY or Dvorak keyboard routine, but mind-boggling act of memorizing STUPID key sequences that has TOTALLY NOTHING TO DO with how the characters are shaped....
For that matter, using MS-Windoze to type in the Chinese (or Thai, or Korean, and so on) isn't that easier than Linux. You _still_ have to memorize those STUPID key-sequences, or there is no go.
But help is on the way. IBM's "Via Voice" and all other voice-recognition softwares are transforming the landscape - we no longer have to crack our brains in order to type in a simple sentences, - using the voice recognition software, all we have to concentrate on is WHAT WE WANT TO SAY.
I hope, in the near future, all the languages in the world will be easily used in computer, and I would like to express my sincerest thanks to all the talented individuals who have done such a superb job in creating the voice-recognition softwares, and companies like IBM which has generously supported such herculean efforts.
I fully understand the need for some to dig at China whenever they get the chance, but this time I am afraid it has gone too far.
The people who frequent slashdot should have understand the differences between CRACKERS and HACKERS.
A Hacker is someone who derives joy from discovering ways to cirvumvent limitations, while a Cracker, on the other hand, is someone who intentionally commiting CRIME using his/her knowledge of hi-tech hacking.
The reference to the guy who was sentenced to death in China as a "Hacker" is simply erroneous. The case involved was a CRIMINAL CASE, where two brothers have ROBBED A BANK, using hi-tech hacking maneuvers.
BANK ROBBERY, no matter via the "stick-em-up" way or via computer hackery, is still BANK ROBBERY, and I believe the very act of ROBBING BANK constitutes a CRIME in China, as well as US or Australia.
In US, BANK ROBBERY is a FEDERAL CRIME, that is, the case is immediately under FBI's jurisdiction, no matter where it happens in the U. S. of A.
If bank robbery is a crime in the USA, how come we have people here rooting for bank robbers who robbed banks in China?
Why the double standards?
A crime is a crime, there is no two ways about it.
There should not be a double standard here, especially when the people who frequent
My only hope for the new millennium (just a few days away) is the people who frequent slashdot.org would respect China's right in carrying out its duty to protect its own citizenry.
Please stop denying China its right to punish its own criminals, just as US wouldn't want anyone from India or Afghanistan to meddle in the US criminal justice system.
Just a side-note:
China is just another country, and we all know there _are_ people who would fault China for whatever reason they can find.
Of course, these people are experts. They would package their condemnations in such ways that they would appeared to be non-racis. But we all know the true reasons behind all those condemnations.
Meanwhile, lest we forget, USA is _still_ a country practicing capital punishment. How come we do not see the same people who condemn the death pernalty in China condemns the death pernalty in the U. S. of A?
Why not?
I mean, are the poor souls who were put to death in the USA _less_ dead than their counterparts in China?
We can do better. We should do better.
We should be able to differentiate CRACKERS from HACKERS, and we should be able to understand that in order for the Americans to condemn China for putting its own citizens to death, USA should first stops its own capital punishment.
Want to demand China to stop executing its own people? Let the United States be the first one to put a stop of all its capital punishment cases. Then perhaps you can start demanding China to do the same.
One question - no matter it is trade secret or patent, how effective will the court be, if they have to silence the ENTIRE WORLD?
Some people may have been served court-papers designed to seal-their-lips, but think of this - we are all in the Net, and the more the court tries to seal-lips, the more of us will TALK TO OTHERS about the matter, and the more injunctions handed down by the court, the LOUDER we will talk about it.
Can the court punishes THE WHOLE WORLD?
Of course not.
Let them try, and let them find out that they can no longer use the same-old-routine to step on other people anymore.
All the window-managers that I have come across have one thing in common, they all want to be compared to, and outsmart MS-Windows, and I think this is a very misguided move.
Look, this gets very stale, very fast.
IBM have done this years ago - they came out with the slogan "Better Window and Window" for the OS/2, and see where OS/2 is heading?
What the Open-Source community needs to realize is that we do not compete against MS-Windoze. We are Open-Source, and we can use our talent for BETTER THINGS than yet-another-window-manager.
Would someone please listen up -
Please, we do not need to waste out time on outsmarting MS-Windows. Instead, we can use out time better to make Linux, and all its utilities, EASIER TO INSTALL AND USE.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for taking time out to consider what I have just said.
Hoping y'all have a WONDERFUL YEAR OF 2000 !!!
I tried accessing http://www.biomorph-desk.com/ and it seemed they have been slashdotted.
Is there any alternative sites that I can go find out more about ergonomic furnitures?
Thanks in advance.
T'is being the LAST OFFICIAL Christmas of the 1xxx years, if I am allowed to ask only ONE question, my question will be -
What man have accomplished (good and bad) in the two thousand years since Jesus Christ was introduced into this world?
It sure beats "Who is the man of the century" type of useless survey.
This message is going to be a little bit Off-Topic, please do not get too offended
Do you know that both the games of Chess and GO originated from the East - from China?
The Chess game was introduced to the Western world (Europe and Middle East) by the Mongolian invaders, whose has learned the game of Chess from the Chinese.
The GO game was introduced to the Western world via the Japanese, whom in turn learned it from the Chinese.
Sorry for this not-so-on-topic message, but I think you might want to learn something this Christmas day anyway.
Merry Christmas !!
This is going to be a little bit OT, but this needs to be said anyway
Do you know that both the game of Chess and GO originated from the East - from China?
The Chess game was introduced to the Western world (Europe and Middle East) by the Mongolian invaders, whose has learned the game of Chess from the Chinese.
The GO game was introduced to the Western world via the Japanese, whom in turn learned it from the Chinese.
Sorry for this not-so-on-topic message, but I think you might want to learn something this Christmas day anyway.
Merry Christmas !!
This is my own opinion - I personally do not think the journalist who wrote the piece actually gets it.
Most things that we have here, today, from gunpowder to electronic wonders, the ideas behind them all originated not from tweaking equations, but from intuition and inspiration.
Sometimes it requires "clicks" in the mind's eye to find a true "EUREKA!". Tweaking equations, IMHO, just doesn't make it.
After all, tweaking equations require _prior_ equations to exist, or there won't be anything to be "tweaked", right? And most of those prior equations owed their existence from the "clicks" of somebody's mind's eye.
Sorry, I've wandered to far out of topic. Gotta stop when I'm still able to.
Merry Christmas !
While you might be true in saying that we ought to improve on the "Feel" thing - in sinking the 8-ball or in other endeavors - but please do not disregard the _importance_ of feel.
There are times I have done thing by "feel" alone, and those are the times I could have done extensive calculations and such, but there is always that little voice (call it instinct if you may) that tells me to go by "Feel" - yea, sounds like Obiwan's "Feel the force, Luke" thing, doesn't it?
I have tried to explain what "Feel" is, but I just can't. It's something you gotta have within yourself.
Anyway, Merry Christmas !!
My point is that perhaps the "discovery" of the "scattering solution" may not be yielding much practical effect, like the onet you have mentioned - distributed computing.
Perhaps the "discovery" itself may be used for predicting when and where the "scattering effect" may occur, and with the ability to predict, new branches of science may finally be able to mushroom.